04/10/10 - Longbeard meets Flintlock

[roundball]

Not a peep. Me thinks my birds have flown the coop.

One thing to remember, if a Tom is still 'henned' up...he's roosting with them and basically won't leave them to come to a call as long as he's still got active hens under his wing.

They usually finish their Shenanigans by 9:00-9:30-ish and the hens go to nest to lay their egg for the day...a Tom can get the wanderlust from about 9:00-12:00noon...so when they still have a few hens left with them, it sometimes works to stay the whole morning to have better odds of pulling one your way...leaving at 9:00 is before they have much chance to start roaming and looking for luv...

 

[Capt. Fred]

Yup, I've shot 4 or 5 over the years in the late morning but its only worked for me when I've been working birds and following along a couple hundred yards behind.

I had one bird in Mass that I followed up to the border of the land I had permission on. I left my gun leaning on a tree, followed the gobbler and hens for another half mile or so, the hens gave him the slip and he finally started back in my direction, I led him back to the property I had permission on, got my gun, played cat and mouse for a half hour or so, and finally got him by hiding on the far side of a hump of high ground. He had to come to the top of the hump to look for me and I got my shot.

My problem here is that I can hear the surrounding 5 or 6 patches of woods that I don't have permission to hunt. It is farm country with big fields and patches of woods here and there and on a calm morning I can hear a gobble if its in any of the nearby woodlots. But I'm not hearing any turkeys at all.

There had been lots of sign on my piece and I've got a couple of more mornings I can go, so hopefully they'll be back.

 

[roundball]

I'm embarrassed to say I forgot to change the alarm setting last night and never woke up til 6:30 this morning so I'm having coffee with my better half. May run out this afternoon...rain is supposed to end around 4:00pm.

My situation is similar...since I won't turkey hunt public lands due to safety concerns, I have a tiny 4 acre greenfield I hunt that's surrounded by other properties on 3 sides, and a country road on the 4th.
I've seen them over the years foraging through the grass for bugs, and occasionally I've seen a tom use one side of it as a strutting zone...so I cleared a little naturel blind area near one of the back corners and deal with whatever cards get dealt to me.
Have only heard one other gobbler since I pulled that opening day gobbler off the other property into the field...and that other gobbler I heard was hundreds of yards off in another direction.

 

[SimonKenton]

I've seen a few gobbler/hen setups but some guys are really advocating a "love tiangle" setup of an aggressive jake, passive jake and an indecisive hen. Does that sound like over complicating the issue?

-Ray

 

[Capt. Fred]

Sounds kind of complicated to me but all I ever do is try to sound like a few lovely, lonely hens. I try to sound like more than one bird. I use a diaphram (or two) and a slate and I also move around quite a bit if the gobbler is still way off. I want to sound like a little group of hens feeding and gossiping. :thumbsup:

 

[SimonKenton]

In other words sound like the "View" but with more feathers AND brains? :rotf:

-Ray

 

[The Baron]

Very nice. Way to go roundball! :hatsoff: